Clouds of Witness Ch 7

“Scenes which make emotional history,” said Miss Heath-Warburton, “should ideally be expressed in a series of animal squeals.”

                “The D. H. Lawrence formula,” said the other.

David Herbert Lawrence (11 September 1885 – 2 March 1930) was an English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter who published as D. H. Lawrence. His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanising effects of modernity and industrialisation. In them, Lawrence confronts issues relating to emotional health and vitality, spontaneity, and instinct.

Lawrence's opinions earned him many enemies and he endured official persecution, censorship, and misrepresentation of his creative work throughout the second half of his life, much of which he spent in a voluntary exile which he called his "savage pilgrimage." At the time of his death, his public reputation was that of a pornographer who had wasted his considerable talents. E. M. Forster, in an obituary notice, challenged this widely held view, describing him as, "The greatest imaginative novelist of our generation."[3] Later, the influential Cambridge critic F. R. Leavis championed both his artistic integrity and his moral seriousness, placing much of Lawrence's fiction within the canonical "great tradition" of the English novel. Lawrence is now valued by many as a visionary thinker and significant representative of modernism in English literature.    

 “Or even Dada,” said the authoress.

Dada  or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early twentieth century. It began in Zurich, Switzerland in 1916, spreading to Berlin shortly thereafter.[1] To quote Dona Budd's The Language of Art Knowledge,

    Dada was born out of negative reaction to the horrors of World War I. This international movement was begun by a group of artists and poets associated with the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich. Dada rejected reason and logic, prizing nonsense, irrationality and intuition. The origin of the name Dada is unclear; some believe that it is a nonsensical word. Others maintain that it originates from the Romanian artists Tristan Tzara and Marcel Janco's frequent use of the words da, da, meaning yes, yes in the Romanian language. Another theory says that the name "Dada" came during a meeting of the group when a paper knife stuck into a French-German dictionary happened to point to 'dada', a French word for 'hobbyhorse'.

The movement primarily involved visual arts, literature, poetry, art manifestoes, art theory, theatre, and graphic design, and concentrated its anti-war politics through a rejection of the prevailing standards in art through anti-art cultural works. In addition to being anti-war, Dada was also anti-bourgeois and had political affinities with the radical left.

Dada activities included public gatherings, demonstrations, and publication of art/literary journals; passionate coverage of art, politics, and culture were topics often discussed in a variety of media. Key figures in the movement included Hugo Ball, Emmy Hennings, Hans Arp, Raoul Hausmann, Hannah Höch, Johannes Baader, Tristan Tzara, Francis Picabia, Richard Huelsenbeck, Georg Grosz, John Heartfield, Marcel Duchamp, Beatrice Wood, Kurt Schwitters, and Hans Richter, among others. The movement influenced later styles like the avant-garde and downtown music movements, and groups including surrealism, Nouveau réalisme, pop art and Fluxus.

    Dada is the groundwork to abstract art and sound poetry, a starting point for performance art, a prelude to postmodernism, an influence on pop art, a celebration of antiart to be later embraced for anarcho-political uses in the 1960s and the movement that lay the foundation for Surrealism             

“We need a new notation,” said the curly-haired man, putting both elbows on the table and knocking Wimsey's bread on to the floor. “Have you heard Robert Snoates recite his own verse to the tom-tom and the penny whistle?”

A made up character

                Lord Peter with difficulty detached his attention from this fascinating discussion to find that Miss Tarrant was saying something about Mary.

                “One misses your sister very much,” she said. “Her wonderful enthusiasm. She spoke so well at meetings. She had such a real sympathy with the worker.”

                “It seems astonishing to me,” said Wimsey, “seeing Mary's never had to do a stroke of work in her life.”

                “Oh,” cried Miss Tarrant, “but she did work. She worked for us. Wonderfully! She was secretary to our Propaganda Society for nearly six months. And then she worked so hard for Mr. Goyles. To say nothing of her nursing in the war. Of course, I don't approve of England's attitude in the war, but nobody would say the work wasn't hard.”

                “Who is Mr. Goyles?”

                “Oh, one of our leading speakers—quite young, but the Government are really afraid of him. I expect he'll be here to-night. He has been lecturing in the North, but I believe he's back now.”

                “I say, do look out,” said Peter. “Your beads are in your plate again.”

                “Are they? Well, perhaps they'll flavor the mutton. I'm afraid the cooking isn't very good here, but the subscription's so small, you see. I wonder Mary never told you about Mr. Goyles. They were so very friendly, you know, some time ago. Everybody thought she was going to marry him—but it seemed to fall through. And then your sister left town. Do you know about it?”

                “That was the fellow, was it? Yes—well, my people didn't altogether see it, you know. Thought Mr. Goyles wasn't quite the son-in-law they'd take to. Family row and so on. Wasn't there myself; besides, Mary'd never listen to me. Still, that's what I gathered.”

                “Another instance of the absurd, old-fashioned tyranny of parents,” said Miss Tarrant warmly. “You wouldn't think it could still be possible—in post-war times.”

                “I don't know,” said Wimsey, “that you could exactly call it that. Not parents exactly. My mother's a remarkable woman. I don't think she interfered. Fact, I fancy she wanted to ask Mr. Goyles to Denver. But my brother put his foot down.”

                “Oh well, what can you expect?” said Miss Tarrant scornfully. “But I don't see what business it was of his.”

                “Oh, none,” agreed Wimsey. “Only, owin' to my late father's circumscribed ideas of what was owin' to women, my brother has the handlin' of Mary's money till she marries with his consent. I don't say it's a good plan—I think it's a rotten plan. But there it is.”

                “Monstrous!” said Miss Tarrant, shaking her head so angrily that she looked like shock-headed Peter. “Barbarous! Simply feudal, you know. But, after all, what's money?”

                “Nothing, of course,” said Peter. “But if you've been brought up to havin' it it's a bit awkward to drop it suddenly. Like baths, you know.”

Clouds of Witness Ch 7 cont

Wimsey reminded himself that in so democratic an institution one could hardly expect the assistants to assume that air of superiority which marks the servants in a West End club. For one thing, they would not be such capitalists. In the dining-room below the resemblance to a mission tea was increased by the exceedingly heated atmosphere, the babel of conversation, and the curious inequalities of the cutlery.

The Tower of Babel  forms the focus of a story told in the Book of Genesis of the Bible. According to the story, a united humanity of the generations following the Great Flood, speaking a single language and migrating from the east, came to the land of Shinar  where they resolved to build a city with a tower "whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth."

God came down to see what they did and said: "They are one people and have one language, and nothing will be withheld from them which they purpose to do." "Come, let us go down and confound their speech." And so God scattered them upon the face of the Earth, and confused their languages, so that they would not be able to return to each other, and they left off building the city, which was called Babel "because God there confounded the language of all the Earth".

The Tower of Babel has often been associated with known structures, notably the Etemenanki, a ziggurat dedicated to the Mesopotamian god Marduk by Nabopolassar, king of Babylonia (c. 610 BC). The Great Ziggurat of Babylon base was square (not round), 91 metres (300 ft) in height, and demolished by Alexander the Great. A Sumerian story with some similar elements is told in Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta.      

Miss Tarrant secured seats at a rather crumby table near the serving-hatch, and Peter wedged himself in with some difficulty next to a very large, curly-haired man in a velvet coat, who was earnestly conversing with a thin, eager young woman in a Russian blouse, Venetian beads, a Hungarian shawl, and a Spanish comb, looking like a personification of the United Front of the “Internationale.”

The united front is a form of struggle or political organization that may be carried out by revolutionaries or communist political regimes. The basic theory of the united front tactic was first developed by the Comintern, an international communist organization created by communists in the wake of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.

According to the thesis of the 1922 4th World Congress of the Comintern: “The united front tactic is simply an initiative whereby the Communists propose to join with all workers belonging to other parties and groups and all unaligned workers in a common struggle to defend the immediate, basic interests of the working class against the bourgeoisie.”

The united front allowed workers committed to the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism to struggle alongside non-revolutionary workers. Through these common struggles revolutionaries sought to win other workers to revolutionary socialism. The united front perspective is also used in contemporary and non-Leninist perspectives.   

Lord Peter endeavored to please his hostess by a question about the great Mr. Coke, but was checked by an agitated “Hush!”

                “Please don't shout about it,” said Miss Tarrant, leaning across till her auburn mop positively tickled his eyebrows. “It's so secret.”

                “I'm awfully sorry,” said Wimsey apologetically. “I say, d'you know you're dipping those jolly little beads of yours in the soup?”

                “Oh, am I?” cried Miss Tarrant, withdrawing hastily. “Oh, thank you so much. Especially as the color runs. I hope it isn't arsenic or anything.” Then, leaning forward again, she whispered hoarsely:

                “The girl next me is Erica Heath-Warburton—the writer, you know.”

                Wimsey looked with a new respect at the lady in the Russian blouse. Few books were capable of calling up a blush to his cheek, but he remembered that one of Miss Heath-Warburton's had done it. The authoress was just saying impressively to her companion:

                “—ever know a sincere emotion to express itself in a subordinate clause?”

                “Joyce has freed us from the superstition of syntax,” agreed the curly man.

James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century. Joyce is best known for Ulysses (1922), a landmark work in which the episodes of Homer's Odyssey are paralleled in (and with) an array of contrasting literary styles, perhaps most prominent amongst these the stream of consciousness technique he perfected. Other major works are the short-story collection Dubliners (1914), and the novels A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) and Finnegans Wake (1939). His complete oeuvre also includes three books of poetry, a play, occasional journalism, and his published letters.

Joyce was born to a middle class family in Dublin, where he excelled as a student at the Jesuit schools Clongowes and Belvedere, then at University College Dublin. In his early twenties he emigrated permanently to continental Europe, living in Trieste, Paris and Zurich. Though most of his adult life was spent abroad, Joyce's fictional universe does not extend far beyond Dublin, and is populated largely by characters who closely resemble family members, enemies and friends from his time there; Ulysses in particular is set with precision in the streets and alleyways of the city. Shortly after the publication of Ulysses he elucidated this preoccupation somewhat, saying, "For myself, I always write about Dublin, because if I can get to the heart of Dublin I can get to the heart of all the cities of the world. In the particular is contained the universal.

Clouds of Witness Ch 7 cont

· · · · · · · · · ·

                “So that's how the matter stands, you see, Lord Peter,” said the Chief of Scotland Yard, rising from his desk with a friendly gesture of dismissal. “The man was undoubtedly seen at Marylebone on the Friday morning, and, though we have unfortunately lost him again for the moment, I have no doubt whatever that we shall lay hands on him before long. The delay has been due to the unfortunate illness of the porter Morrison, whose evidence has been so material. But we are wasting no time now.”

                “I'm sure I may leave it to you with every confidence, Sir Andrew,” replied Wimsey, cordially shaking hands. “I'm diggin' away too; between us we ought to get somethin'—you in your small corner and I in mine, as the hymn says—or is it a hymn? I remember readin' it in a book about missionaries when I was small. Did you want to be a missionary in your youth? I did. I think most kids do some time or another, which is odd, seein' how unsatisfactory most of us turn out.”

                “Meanwhile,” said Sir Andrew Mackenzie, “if you run across the man yourself, let us know. I would never deny your extraordinary good fortune, or it may be good judgment, in running across the criminals we may be wanting.”

                “If I catch the bloke,” said Lord Peter, “I'll come and shriek under your windows till you let me in, if it's the middle of the night and you in your little night-shirt. And talking of night-shirts reminds me that we hope to see you down at Denver one of these days, as soon as this business is over. Mother sends kind regards, of course.”

                “Thanks very much,” replied Sir Andrew. “I hope you feel that all is going well. I had Parker in here this morning to report, and he seemed a little dissatisfied.”

                “He's been doing a lot of ungrateful routine work,” said Wimsey, “and being altogether the fine, sound man he always is. He's been a damn good friend to me, Sir Andrew, and it's a real privilege to be allowed to work with him. Well, so long, Chief.”

                He found that his interview with Sir Andrew Mackenzie had taken up a couple of hours, and that it was nearly eight o'clock. He was just trying to make up his mind where to dine when he was accosted by a cheerful young woman with bobbed red hair, dressed in a short checked skirt, brilliant jumper, corduroy jacket, and a rakish green velvet tam-o'-shanter.

                “Surely,” said the young woman, extending a shapely, ungloved hand, “it's Lord Peter Wimsey. How're you? And how's Mary?”

                “B'Jove!” said Wimsey gallantly, “it's Miss Tarrant. How perfectly rippin' to see you again. Absolutely delightful. Thanks, Mary ain't as fit as she might be—worryin' about this murder business, y'know. You've heard that we're what the poor so kindly and tactfully call 'in trouble,' I expect, what?”

                “Yes, of course,” replied Miss Tarrant eagerly, “and, of course, as a good socialist, I can't help rejoicing rather when a peer gets taken up, because it does make him look so silly, you know, and the House of Lords is silly, isn't it?

Socialism is an economic system characterised by social ownership of the means of production and co-operative management of the economy, and a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to cooperative enterprises, common ownership, state ownership, or citizen ownership of equity. There are many varieties of socialism and there is no single definition encapsulating all of them. They differ in the type of social ownership they advocate, the degree to which they rely on markets or planning, how management is to be organised within productive institutions, and the role of the state in constructing socialism.

A socialist economic system would consist of a system of production and distribution organized to directly satisfy economic demands and human needs, so that goods and services would be produced directly for use instead of for private profit driven by the accumulation of capital. Accounting would be based on physical quantities, a common physical magnitude, or a direct measure of labour-time in place of financial calculation.Distribution of output would be based on the principle of individual contribution.

As a political movement, socialism includes a diverse array of political philosophies, ranging from reformism to revolutionary socialism. Proponents of state socialism advocate the nationalisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange as a strategy for implementing socialism. In contrast, libertarian socialism proposes the traditional view of direct worker's control of the means of production and opposes the use of state power to achieve such an arrangement, opposing both parliamentary politics and state ownership over the means of production. Democratic socialism seeks to establish socialism through democratic processes and propagate its ideals within the context of a democratic system.

Modern socialism originated from an 18th-century intellectual and working class political movement that criticised the effects of industrialisation and private property on society. In the early 19th-century, "socialism" referred to any concern for the social problems of capitalism irrespective of the solutions to those problems. However, by the late 19th-century, "socialism" had come to signify opposition to capitalism and advocacy for an alternative system based on some form of social ownership.

Orthodox Marxists later considered scientific assessment and democratic planning to be critical elements of socialism. In the late 20th century, the term "socialist" has also been used by Third way social democrats to refer to an ethical political doctrine focusing on a common set of values emphasizing social cooperation, universal welfare, and equality. It is used in this way by Third Way proponent Anthony Giddens, who rejects conventional definitions and implementations of socialism.

The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster.

The House of Lords is independent from, and complements the work of, the House of Commons; the Lords share responsibility for making laws and checking government action. Bills can be introduced into either the House of Lords or the House of Commons and members of the Lords may also take on roles as Government Ministers. The House of Lords has its own support services, separate from the Commons, including the House of Lords Library.

Unlike the elected House of Commons, most new members of the House of Lords are appointed. Membership of the House of Lords is made up of Lords Spiritual and Lords Temporal. There are currently 26 Lords Spiritual who sit in the Lords by virtue of their ecclesiastical role in the established Church of England. The Lords Temporal make up the rest of the membership; of these, the majority are life peers who are appointed by the Monarch on the advice of the Prime Minister, or on the advice of the House of Lords Appointments Commission.

Membership was once a right of birth to hereditary peers but, following a series of reforms, only 92 members (as of 1 July 2011) sitting by virtue of a hereditary peerage remain. The number of members is not fixed; as of 11 June 2012 the House of Lords has 775 members (not including 28 who are on leave of absence or are otherwise disqualified from sitting), unlike the House of Commons, which has a 650-seat fixed membership.

The House of Lords provides expertise and scrutinises bills that have been approved by the House of Commons. It regularly reviews and amends bills from the Commons. While the House of Lords is unable unilaterally to prevent bills passing into law (except in certain limited circumstances), its members can severely delay bills that they believe to be misguided and thereby force the government, the Commons, and the general public to reconsider their decisions. In this capacity, the Lords acts as constitutional safeguard that is independent from the electoral process and that can challenge the will of the people when the majority’s desires threaten key constitutional principles, human rights or rules of law. In other countries this role would often be performed by a Constitutional or Supreme Court, but the UK system's emphasis on parliamentary sovereignty—rather than judicial review—means that this function cannot be properly accomplished by the British court system as all judicial rulings can be overruled by parliament.

The Speech from the throne, often known as the Queen's Speech, is delivered from the House of Lords during the State Opening of Parliament. The House also has a minor Church of England role in that through the Lords Spiritual Church Measures must be tabled within the House.

                But, really, I'd rather it was anybody else's brother. Mary and I were such great friends, you know, and, of course, you do investigate things, don't you, not just live on your estates in the country and shoot birds? So I suppose that makes a difference.”

                “That's very kind of you,” said Peter. “If you can prevail upon yourself to overlook the misfortune of my birth and my other deficiencies, p'raps you would honor me by comin' along and havin' a bit of dinner somewhere, what?”

                “Oh, I'd have loved to,” cried Miss Tarrant, with enormous energy, “but I've promised to be at the club to-night. There's a meeting at nine. Mr. Coke—the Labour leader, you know—is going to make a speech about converting the Army and Navy to Communism.

The Labour Party is a centre-left political party in the United Kingdom, and one of the two main British political parties along with the Conservative Party. The Labour Party was founded in 1900 and overtook the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929–1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after which it formed a majority government under Clement Attlee. Labour was also in government from 1964 to 1970 under Harold Wilson and from 1974 to 1979, first under Wilson and then James Callaghan.

The Labour Party was last in national government between 1997 and 2010 under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, beginning with a majority of 179, reduced to 167 in 2001 and 66 in 2005. Having won 258 seats in the 2010 general election, the party currently forms the Official Opposition in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Labour has a minority government in the Welsh Assembly, is the main opposition party in the Scottish Parliament and has 13 MEPs in the European Parliament, sitting in the Socialists and Democrats group. The Labour Party is a member of the Socialist International and Party of European Socialists.

The Leader of the Labour Party is the most senior politician within the Labour Party in the United Kingdom.

The post of Leader of the Labour Party was officially created in 1922. Before this time, between when Labour MPs were first elected in 1906 and the election in 1922, when substantial gains were made, the post was known as Chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party.

Unlike other British political party leaders, the Labour Leader does not have the power to dismiss or appoint their Deputy. Both the Leader and Deputy Leader are elected by an Alternative Vote system in an electoral college, with a third of the votes allocated to the Party's MPs and MEPs, a third to individual members of the Labour Party, and a third to individual members of all affiliated organisations, including socialist societies and trade unions.

When the Labour Party is in Opposition, as it currently is, the Leader of the Labour Party usually acts as the Leader of the Opposition, and chairs the Shadow Cabinet. Concordantly, when the Party is in Government, the Leader would usually become the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, First Lord of the Treasury and Minister for the Civil Service, as well as appointing the Cabinet.

In 1921, John Robert Clynes became the first Leader of the Labour Party to be born in England; prior to this, all Leaders had been born in Scotland. In 1924, Ramsay MacDonald became the first ever Labour Prime Minister, leading a minority administration. Clement Attlee would become the first Leader to lead a majority government in 1945. The first to be born in Wales was Neil Kinnock, who was elected in 1983. The most electorally successful Labour Leader to date is Tony Blair, who won three in 1997, 2001, both landslide victories, and 2005.

                We expect to be raided, and there's going to be a grand hunt for spies before we begin. But look here, do come along and dine with me there, and, if you like, I'll try to smuggle you in to the meeting, and you'll be seized and turned out. I suppose I oughtn't to have told you anything about it, because you ought to be a deadly enemy, but I can't really believe you're dangerous.”

                “I'm just an ordinary capitalist, I expect,” said Lord Peter, “highly obnoxious.”

                “Well, come to dinner, anyhow. I do so want to hear all the news.”

                Peter reflected that the dinner at the Soviet Club would be worse than execrable, and was just preparing an excuse when it occurred to him that Miss Tarrant might be able to tell him a good many of the things that he didn't know, and really ought to know, about his own sister.

The Soviet Club is an invention of Miss Sayers

                Accordingly, he altered his polite refusal into a polite acceptance, and, plunging after Miss Tarrant, was led at a reckless pace and by a series of grimy short cuts into Gerrard Street, where an orange door, flanked by windows with magenta curtains, sufficiently indicated the Soviet Club.

                The Soviet Club, being founded to accommodate free thinking rather than high living, had that curious amateur air which pervades all worldly institutions planned by unworldly people. Exactly why it made Lord Peter instantly think of mission teas he could not say, unless it was that all the members looked as though they cherished a purpose in life, and that the staff seemed rather sketchily trained and strongly in evidence.

I couldn’t find an exact definition for this, but presumably it has to do with missionaries,  holding teas as fund raisers.

Clouds of Witness ch 7 cont

                No more of an exciting nature was said until the omelette was disposed of, and Lady Mary comfortably settled on the chesterfield. She had by now recovered her poise. Looking at her, Parker noticed how her recent illness (however produced) had left its mark upon her. Her complexion had nothing of the brilliance which he remembered; she looked strained and white, with purple hollows under her eyes.

                “I am sorry I was so foolish just now, Mr. Parker,” she said, looking into his eyes with a charming frankness and confidence, “but I was dreadfully distressed, and I came up from Riddlesdale so hurriedly.”

                “Not at all,” said Parker meaninglessly. “Is there anything I can do in your brother's absence?”

                “I suppose you and Peter do everything together?”

                “I think I may say that neither of us knows anything about this investigation which he has not communicated to the other.”

                “If I tell you, it's the same thing?”

                “Exactly the same thing. If you can bring yourself to honor me with your confidence——”

                “Wait a minute, Mr. Parker. I'm in a difficult position. I don't quite know what I ought——Can you tell me just how far you've got—what you have discovered?”

                Mr. Parker was a little taken aback. Although the face of Lady Mary had been haunting his imagination ever since the inquest, and although the agitation of his feelings had risen to boiling-point during this romantic interview, the official instinct of caution had not wholly deserted him. Holding, as he did, proof of Lady Mary's complicity in the crime, whatever it was, he was not so far gone as to fling all his cards on the table.

                “I'm afraid,” he said, “that I can't quite tell you that. You see, so much of what we've got is only suspicion as yet. I might accidentally do great mischief to an innocent person.”

                “Ah! You definitely suspect somebody, then?”

                “Indefinitely would be a better word for it,” said Mr. Parker with a smile. “But if you have anything to tell us which may throw light on the matter, I beg you to speak. We may be suspecting a totally wrong person.”

                “I shouldn't be surprised,” said Lady Mary, with a sharp, nervous little laugh. Her hand strayed to the table and began pleating the orange envelope into folds. “What do you want to know?” she asked suddenly, with a change of tone. Parker was conscious of a new hardness in her manner—a something braced and rigid.

                He opened his note-book, and as he began his questioning his nervousness left him; the official reasserted himself.

                “You were in Paris last February?”

                Lady Mary assented.

                “Do you recollect going with Captain Cathcart—oh! by the way, you speak French, I presume?”

                “Yes, very fluently.”

                “As well as your brother—practically without accent?”

                “Quite as well. We always had French governesses as children, and mother was very particular about it.”

                “I see. Well, now, do you remember going with Captain Cathcart on February 6th to a jeweler's in the Rue de la Paix and buying, or his buying for you, a tortoiseshell comb set with diamonds and a diamond and platinum cat with emerald eyes?”

                He saw a lurking awareness come into the girl's eyes.

                “Is that the cat you have been making inquiries about in Riddlesdale?” she demanded.

                It being never worthwhile to deny the obvious, Parker replied “Yes.”

                “It was found in the shrubbery, wasn't it?”

                “Had you lost it? Or was it Cathcart's?”

                “If I said it was his——”

                “I should be ready to believe you. Was it his?”

                “No”—a long breath—“it was mine.”

                “When did you lose it?”

                “That night.”

                “Where?”

                “I suppose in the shrubbery. Wherever you found it. I didn't miss it till later.”

                “Is it the one you bought in Paris?”

                “Yes.”

                “Why did you say before that it was not yours?”

                “I was afraid.”

                “And now?”

                “I am going to speak the truth.”

                Parker looked at her again. She met his eye frankly, but there was a tenseness in her manner which showed that it had cost her something to make up her mind.

                “Very well,” said Parker, “we shall all be glad of that, for I think there were one or two points at the inquest on which you didn't tell the truth, weren't there?”

                “Yes.”

                “Do believe,” said Parker, “that I am sorry to have to ask these questions. The terrible position in which your brother is placed——”

                “In which I helped to place him.”

                “I don't say that.”

                “I do. I helped to put him in gaol. Don't say I didn't, because I did.”

“Well,” said Parker, “don't worry. There's plenty of time to put it all right again. Shall I go on?”

                “Yes.”

                “Well, now, Lady Mary, it wasn't true about hearing that shot at three o'clock was it?”

                “No.”

                “Did you hear the shot at all?”

                “Yes.”

                “When?”

                “At 11.50.”

                “What was it, then, Lady Mary, you hid behind the plants in the conservatory?”

                “I hid nothing there.”

                “And in the oak chest on the landing?”

                “My skirt.”

                “You went out—why?—to meet Cathcart?”

                “Yes.”

                “Who was the other man?”

                “What other man?”

                “The other man who was in the shrubbery. A tall, fair man dressed in a Burberry?”

                “There was no other man.”

                “Oh, pardon me, Lady Mary. We saw his footmarks all the way up from the shrubbery to the conservatory.”

                “It must have been some tramp. I know nothing about him.”

                “But we have proof that he was there—of what he did, and how he escaped. For heaven's sake, and your brother's sake, Lady Mary, tell us the truth—for that man in the Burberry was the man who shot Cathcart.”

                “No,” said the girl, with a white face, “that is impossible.”

                “Why impossible?”

                “I shot Denis Cathcart myself.”